• by Shankar Gupta , April 7, 2005

MSN today is expected to announce the official launch of the blogging service MSN Spaces, and the release of a new version of MSN Messenger, both formerly available in beta. Both features will incorporate branding campaigns--the raison d'etre of the company's "Branded Entertainment and Experience Division," which was created last month. Initial sponsors include car manufacturer Volvo, sneaker company Adidas, and the soft drink Sprite.

MSN Spaces, which was launched in beta on Dec. 1, allows users to create and author a blog for free. The final product is similar to the test version, said Gayle Troberman, director of MSN's branded entertainment and experiences. MSN Spaces allows users to create semi-private blogs, viewable only by people on users' contact lists, or public blogs, viewable Web-wide. The privacy settings apply to the entire blog, however--unlike free-blog competitors such as Livejournal, which allow for individual posts to have different privacy settings.

At launch, car manufacturer Volvo will sponsor a branded "best-of" page, entitled "What's Your Story," which will include links to the Volvo site. For the initiative, MSN Spaces staff will scour the hosted blogs, looking for good tales from the MSN bloggers, and will post them on the site.

The latest version of MSN Messenger also will be released from beta today. It will incorporate a number of visual bells and whistles, such as animated "winks," and drag-and-drop backgrounds for the messenger windows. It will also allow users the ability to log in on "stealth mode," so users can see who's online before committing to chatting.

To monetize MSN Messenger, which is downloadable for free from the MSN site, the branded entertainment and experiences group introduced a service that allows advertisers to create graphical add-ons and visual "skins," branded with their product's logo. In the beta phase of development, Coca-Cola North America jumped onboard to promote Sprite, using action-figure pitchman Miles Thirst. Troberman said that the downloads of the Thirst theme have been "impressive," but declined to supply an exact number.

Starting today, Adidas will advertise its new "Adidas 1"--a $250 sneaker with an embedded microchip--on MSN Messenger.

MSN also will begin selling online video inventory on Messenger's video messaging service. The messenger program usually requires a wait of seven to 10 seconds to sync up video hook-ups; Troberman said that MSN is looking to sell ad space for that time.

Troberman said that the goal of these initiatives is to get the advertiser's brand integrated with the users' time online. "We've heard from our advertising customers that as products like MSN Messenger become more of a central part of a consumer's time, advertisers want to be able to reach those consumers in new ways and become part of their experience," she said.